FEMA Announces $410 Million for Mitigation Activities to Reduce Future Damages from Disasters

The Fiscal Year 2019 (FY2019) Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) were announced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on August 26, 2019. With these announcements, FEMA is making $410 million available to communities to protect life and property from future disaster damages. The application period will open on September 30, 2019 and will close on January 31, 2020. Eligible activities include technical assistance, advance assistance, management costs, planning, and project grants. If you are a subapplicant (local government or federally recognized tribe applying as a subapplicant), check with your applicant (state, District of Columbia, federally-recognized tribe, or U.S. territory) as they typically set due dates earlier than FEMA’s due date. 

Key Highlights for FY2019:

• FEMA will replace the annually appropriated PDM program with the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program in Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020) as authorized in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act.
• Applicants can include 10% of project costs as management costs in a separate application. Subapplicants can include 5% of project costs as management costs as a budget line item in the subapplication.
• Advance Assistance funding can be used for project preparation activities, including engineering and design, alternative evaluations, and hydrologic and hydraulic studies. Advance Assistance is limited to $200,000 per applicant.
• Pre-award costs that are incurred eight months prior to the application period are allowed. These costs are related to the development of the application and may include items such as preparing environmental data, developing a benefit-cost analysis, or developing design and engineering specifications.

FEMA will offer several types of webinars on the FY19 NOFOs for prospective applicants. Details on these webinars are summarized below.

• NOFO Overview will cover the basics of this year’s PDM and FMA programs including eligibility and funding limits.
• NOFO Overview for Tribal Applicants will be an overview of the PDM and FMA programs tailored specifically to tribal applicants.
• EGrants for Beginners will provide instructions on how to use the PDM and FMA application system, eGrants, including how to access the system and how to obtain assistance.
• Avoiding Application Pitfalls will discuss common PDM and FMA grant application errors and how to avoid them.

Please visit FEMA’s website for further webinar details.

We at Hagerty have extensive expertise in assisting communities in developing applications for PDM and FMA funding. Feel free to reach out to Amelia Muccio to discuss how Hagerty can assist you in developing your projects into successful applications.

Katie Grasty is the Deputy Director of Mitigation for Hagerty Consulting. Katie has over 10 years of experience with federal grant management with FEMA and USDOT. Prior to Hagerty, Katie was the senior program lead for Hazard Mitigation with FEMA Region 9 where she managed over $2 billion in federal funds for flood, fire, and earthquake risk reduction projects. Katie earned a Masters in Environmental Management from Duke University and a Bachelor of Science in Geography from Radford University.